Non-price Rationing of Gasoline

The scarcity problem: resources, and by extension the goods and services made with them, are more scarce at any point in time than the amount humans want. Therefore, stuff must be rationed. When the price system, for whatever reason, fails to work as a rationing system, something else must take its place.

With long gas lines persisting more than a week after Superstorm Sandy, New York imposed a gasoline rationing plan Thursday that lets motorists fill up every other day.

Police will be at gas stations Friday morning to enforce the new system in New York City and on Long Island. Gas will be available to drivers with license-plate numbers ending in an odd number or a letter on Friday. On Saturday, drivers with license plates that end in even numbers or zero can fuel up.